[rescue] Re: Re: Quick EXB-210 questions

[Robert Novak]

On Sun, 26 Aug 2001, Greg A. Woods wrote:

> I don't care what the published specs say -- the design and the
> engineering are atrocious.  All the wrong effort in all the wrong places
> with extraneous and redundant cost factors that realy suck.  (not to
> mention but it's helical scan too, isn't it?)

I must have been pretty lucky then. But in any event, * sucks. I keep
meaning to put that on other people's monitors.

> What are your backups for?  Do they just impress management and get
> done quickly enough not to annoy you, or are they for real-life uses?  
> If the latter then you really cannot afford AIT or anything helical
> scan!

They're for backing up my home network, for when I need to migrate a
system or replace a failed hard drive. I have found 8mm metal particle to
be quite sufficient for this so far. Admittedly this might be in line with
published reports, but I've found that very little that I've done is
impossible.

> > Ew, TK50 on steroids. I gave up on drives you can hear in the next room
> > when I retired my last QIC-80 drive years ago. But still, whatever crap
> > works for you works for you.
> 
> Don't mess with a good thing!  Everyone I've ever met or even heard of
> who's had real experience with *REALLY* needing their backups when the
> proverbial smelly stuff hits the fan big-time has either been ultra
> grateful for having chosen DLT, or spitting nails for having not chosen
> DLT.

Well, you can't say that anymore. I've had real experience with really
needing my backups when the proverbial smelly stuff hits the fan big-time,
on 8mm media, and no fasteners of any sort even began to speculate about
the merest possibility of crossing my lips. 

What do you use for your home backups, by the way? SDLT? 9-track? 

> > I've never had anyone give me a really compelling reason to use DLT.
> 
> It works, EVERY time (assuming correct treatment and proper
> maintenance).  It doesn't wear out as quickly (neither tape nor drive),
> and the shelf life of the tapes is guaranteed proven to out-last
> commercially produced CDs (never mind CD-RW!).

I still have no compelling reason. Still open to donations, of course. 

I have trouble believing any report that has no downsides, but maybe you
haven't run into the downside yet. Or maybe DLT is actually perfect except
for noise and slow access time and increased pass count. Or maybe it
really has been around longer than CD technology... I know I have CDs that
are 15 years old and still work. How many DLT tapes do you have that are
that old and still read without errors?

But anyway, this is starting to smell like a religious debate. I'll go
back to working on my P2B-S system (yeah, I know, if you had a penny for
every Intel architecture motherboard that spontaneously combusted and
destroyed civilization as we know it...)

Rob


Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * rnovak at indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
        "And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
           Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows